The entirety of the rules regarding the structure of a text or document type, as well as additional functions including further processing, linking and management, are themselves all written in XML. This lingua franca can be applied not only to the sharing of semantics between information content, but also to the sharing of meaning in respect to content processing and management.
All aspects of an integrated information management system could therefore be expressed in XML, including:
- Managing your information and documents themselves – the essence of XML:
- storing data in a neutral format
- Applying your business rules: your business processing ‘middleware’
- Constraining format and structure of data and documents, plus workflow and access
- Controlling user interfaces and information display, including user control over display without affecting underlying content
- Extracting knowledge from information